Road To Riches winning at Clonmel in 2015. The 11-year-old is for sale at auction this month.
Photograph: racingfotos.com/REX Shutterstock

Wednesday’s best bets, by Chris Cook

About this time last year, a group of friends led by Gary O’Brien of At The Races shelled out £21,000 at an auction in Doncaster for a 10-year-old handicap chaser who hadn’t shown his very best form for five years. It’s not the sort of investment your bank manager will ever recommend but it turned out to be excellent business, as Folsom Blue won twice last winter and gave his new owners a huge thrill (and a similar quantity of frustration) when an unlucky fourth in the Irish National.

Folsom Blue is a fine advert for the ‘horses in training’ sale due to take place at Doncaster in a fortnight’s time and specifically for the draft of horses being sold off by Gigginstown, of which he formed part a year ago. Gigginstown won this year’s Irish National with General Principle but their cast-off came within two lengths of beating them.

There are some very fancy names being offered by Gigginstown this time, including Road To Riches, who was a really brave third in Coneygree’s Gold Cup but has since lost his way. Also among the 37 lots who formerly carried the maroon silks are Thunder And Roses, Lord Scoundrel, Lieutenant Colonel, Measureofmydreams, Devils Bride, Wounded Warrior and others you’ll have heard of. Those names alone include the winners of an Irish National, a Galway Plate and a Hatton’s Grace.

I see a suggestion on social media that it shows an inappropriate lack of sentiment to be selling off horses who have achieved so much in your colours. In the case of an owner with just a handful of horses, I could understand that, but Gigginstown is a very different beast. If they retired every 10-year-old who had lost his way, they’d have fields full of them in no time.

“We do this every year and we often sell a good horse this way,” Gigginstown’s Eddie O’Leary tells me. “It’s so competitive in Ireland. A lot of these horses can go to England and win races at your Fakenhams and Huntingdons.

“Kerry Lee bought Bishops Road from us for £32,000. A change of scenery works wonders for some of these horses. Some of them can go point to pointing or be a schoolmaster for someone.”

Gigginstown has a home for the very best of its retired horses, like War Of Attrition, Last Instalment, Rule The World and Don Cossack. Tiger Roll and Samcro will doubtless be joining them some day. But some of the others can keep going for a few more years in other yards and that seems perfectly healthy to me.

Also healthy, I hope, is the 13-2 about Butlergrove King (2.20) in Southwell’s opener, a staying handicap chase. A consistent sort for Dai Burchell over the years, he ran well for a long way recently on his first run for a year. Dropped 4lb, he is now on a beatable mark and I think he needs this step up in trip.

Otherwise, my interest today is at Wolverhampton tonight, where the nap is Dixieland Diva (7.25). She’s been frustrating but gets a good opportunity in this small-field novice race and her pedigree suggests this switch to an all-weather surface may help. She comes from the bang-in-form Andrew Balding yard, although that was of course also true when she was beaten last time. Odds of 6-5 are just OK.

Earlier, Emily’s Sea (6.50) appeals at 3-1 after finishing strongly on her debut at Chelmsford last month. This extra furlong should really help a horse with her middle-distance pedigree and I hope for a nice step forward.